


red eyes in morning

by AbsoluteTempest



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Accidental Strangulation, Alien AU, Deletor Ibuki, M/M, yes there's tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsoluteTempest/pseuds/AbsoluteTempest
Summary: be wary of sins that still manifest from a person's heart





	red eyes in morning

**Author's Note:**

> *always sunny tune* The Gang Write Alien AUs
> 
> minus the strangulation this is a lot softer than what im implying

The key in his hands should give him a warm feeling, excitement, but the key to his boyfriend's apartment only gives Aichi a lump in his throat.

He didn't even get it from Ibuki; he received it from Kai. They had met for lunch briefly nearby, for reasons he was told was important.

“I want you to check up on Ibuki,” Kai started, rummaging through his coat pocket. He took out a key and pressed it into Aichi's hand. “He told me two days ago he was getting sick again, but I haven't heard from him, and he won't call or text back…”

“Um…” Aichi scratched his face. “Why do you have a spare key? And w-why me though?”

Kai hummed as he took a bite out of his sandwich. “Ibuki gave it to me for emergencies. Unfortunately, I have to get ready for a tournament tomorrow. And...you should be the one to do it.”

He looks hard at the key in his hand. Kai was vague, yet slightly pushy about the situation. He has to admit he is worried about Ibuki, not replying to anyone's text, but he wonders if this is the right thing to do, barging in his house.

Aichi squeezes the key in his hand and looks up at the door of Ibuki's apartment. He doesn't want to break in, not yet, so he knocks on the door.

He waits, and waits. When there is nothing but silence, he knocks again, harder. 

He bites his lip when he hears nothing. He starts to worry; was Ibuki okay? Was he just resting the sickness off? Was he getting enough to eat? What if he was too weak to get out of bed?

Aichi squeezes the key again. He'll apologize profusely once the house visit is done and over, give him the key back. 

“I'm really sorry,” he mumbles, as he puts the key in with his shaky hands, and turns it.

Aichi sticks his head into the apartment, and it's silent, completely dark. “Hello?” He closes the door behind him, takes off his shoes, and creeps in. “K-Kai told me you were ill, but wanted me to check on you, Ibuki.”

The common area was dark and quiet, quiet enough that he could hear his rapid heartbeat in his ears, and so Aichi creeps into the bedroom, expecting Ibuki to be laying in bed. But he isn't there; in fact, the bed is neatly made as if the man hasn't been in a day or two.

He turns to the bathroom that is off the bedroom; unlike the rest of the house, he sees faint light streaming from the door that is cracked open. “Ibuki? Are you in there?”

He hears a moan from within, but nothing else. At least he seems to be alive, Aichi thinks.

Aichi walks over slowly, so he doesn’t scare his boyfriend. “Ibuki, it’s me. Sorry for intruding into your space, but Kai said you were ill so I--”

He starts to open the door, slowly, but something small, long, lashes out from behind the door and wraps tightly around his wrist. 

“W-What the--” Aichi doesn’t have the time to register the pressure on his wrist before he feels the same tight squeeze on his ankles. Before he knows it, his back slams onto the floor, his legs pulled out from underneath him.

He sits up, wincing. “What is this…” He tries to pull at whatever is wrapped around his wrist, warm to touch, but it's too slimy to get any sort of grip on it. “Ibuki, Ibuki what--”

Looking up towards the door was Aichi's mistake.

Dancing in the shadows, cast by the light flickering from within the darkness of the bathroom, he sees them. He tries to count them, but he's too riddled in panic, he stops after ten. 

“I-Ibuki?”

That single, soft squeak that emits from his mouth causes them all to freeze.

It's quiet within the room.

Too quiet.

He sucks in his breath.

There's the sound of the fridge humming in the front room, the distant sound of an alarm somewhere in the apartment complex, the sound of cars horns and exhausts, the distant sound of a police siren.

He doesn't know how long he can hold his breath.

From within the bathroom, he hears a moan.

They lunge.

Crawling from under, above, through the open crack, they emerge, and they proceed to engulf him.

They wrap around his arms, his legs, his waist, tie them all together, tightly, strangle all the feeling out of his body.

“Ibuki! Ibuki, can you hear me? Ibu--” One of them snakes around his head, silences him, having to close his mouth to prevent the slime from oozing in.

Still, Aichi tries to scream.

So one of them wraps around his neck and tries to silence him permanently.

It's only for a handful of seconds that he's suffocating but it feels like an eternity, how slowly it feels to have his life slip away through his fingers, how every second he gets closer and closer to have the seams of his body tear, the stuffing of his blood, his organs spill all over the floor.

But before he could be cast aside, a stern voice saves him from this fate.

“S-Stop! Don't kill him!”

They release him so suddenly, retreating away from him, like children in trouble. Feeling rushes back into his limbs, air rushing back into his lungs, leaves him dizzy and sick.

“Aichi...say something…”

“Ibuki…” he manages to utter, his voice hoarse. He manages to drag himself up, prop himself up against the bottom of the bed. “Ibuki, what the he--”

He freezes at the sight before him.

Aichi knows it is Ibuki. It is the same voice that talks to him softly on all their dates, the voice that carries the same fondness for him when they are alone, between kisses both gentle and passionate.

The voice doesn't match the sight before him. 

The usual soft but unkempt hair had grown to shocking lengths, still trailing from within the bathroom as Ibuki drags himself weakly towards him. His hands that had surprised Aichi before on their softness had grown claws, strange appendages, bone that serve him no purpose but to cause pain jut out of his arms and legs. What he now realizes were tentacles grow from his bare back, they dance above him, start to approach Aichi again, tugging gently on his pants and sleeves. 

“I-Ibuki…?”  
“How...how did you get in the apartment? The door was locked…”

Aichi fumbles in his coat pocket and pulls out the key. “K-Kai asked me to check on you, told me you...were sick.”

Ibuki swears. “He shouldn't...he shouldn't be the one to decide when, dammit…” 

When his boyfriend finally manages to look up at him, Aichi is memorized by that face. He sees the sharp fangs growing uncomfortably out of his mouth, but the rest of his face is the same Ibuki that he knows and loves. With feeling finally back in his hands, he brushes the curtain hair out of Ibuki's face.

His eyes were red before, but now they glow quite literally in the dark, bright and red just like--

“Brandt,” Aichi whispers. He pulls Ibuki towards him, putting his head onto his chest. “I have a lot of questions you know.”

Ibuki sighs. “I want to apologize first, for hiding this. And for...almost killing you.”

“I accept your apology...but how, why do you look like this?” Aichi asks, starting to run his hand through Ibuki's hair, still thankfully soft.

His boyfriend hums. “It started a month after the Messiah Scramble actually...I had a dream about Brandt and two days later I transformed into an abomination like this. And ever since then, once a month, this happens...it used to be frightening but at this point, it’s just a nuisance. I’m not sure why this happened...a curse from my sins, or a curse from Oksizz for casting it and Brandt aside…”

“Oksizz sounds more likely…” Aichi mumbles. He starts to play with Ibuki's hair, pulling on it gently to see how long it actually is. “Kai knows this?”

Ibuki groans. “I was afraid of something dire happening, I trust him with this the most, at least, more than Miwa…” He wraps his arms around Aichi's waist, as best he can. “I also had to tell my boss, so I can get the days off for this...I thought the both of them would be shocked and wouldn't believe me, but they were both nonchalant about it. Kai even saw me like this once, and it didn't bother him at all…”

Aichi laughs. If it was anyone else, they would be frightened by such a confession, that grumpy Ibuki Kouji sometimes turns into a writhing mass of tentacles. But of course it would be Kai and Ren that are the most calm and relaxed about such a confession. He stops playing with his hair, however, when he realizes the truth.

“Ibuki, I...why didn’t you say anything?”

Ibuki slowly pushes himself off Aichi, still weak from being in extreme pain, and locks eyes with him. One of the tentacles from his back extends to him, and lightly brushes his cheek, still warm and slimy, but he now knows it's not hostile, finds it more comforting. “I wanted to, I really did. It was crucial to me that I did before we went any further into the relationship. Kai told me you would be okay with this, accept me like this, and I believed him. But...but still, I was afraid that despite that, you would be terrified, push me away. I just wish Kai would have given me a heads up before he gave you my apartment key…”

Aichi smiles. “Kai is right...after everything, something like this wouldn’t bother me. Ibuki is Ibuki.” He cups Ibuki’s face, and presses a kiss to his noise. “I want to help you and support you, even through this...so please let me know, next month, so I can be here for you.”

Ibuki’s eyes widen, his eyes glowing with a light that’s not the same glow as of Brandt. “I will. Will you...will you stay here for the night?”

Aichi nods, yawning. “Of course...I was going to ask you, since I’m exhausted…”

Ibuki rests his head back down on Aichi’s chest. “Thank you…”

The tentacles start to move towards him again, and Aichi can’t help but tense as they start to touch him.

“It’s okay,” Ibuki mumbles into his chest, who felt him tense up. “They won’t hurt you like that anymore…”

One gently wraps around his hand, soft, tugs at it. The rest wrap around his back, pulling the two close together. It’s like a warm blanket, safe, secure, the complete opposite feeling of when he first walked in, and the warmth of these tentacles and the warmth of Ibuki’s body so close to his is starting to lull him to sleep. 

Aichi pets Ibuki’s hair again, rubs the tenacle in his hand, smiles softly when he sees his boyfriend has already fallen asleep, drooling on his shirt. 

A curse, an abomination, Ibuki had called this. 

But all Aichi could see is just Ibuki.


End file.
